Transparent Blogging – kategreen28

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Transparent Blogging

This week’s #dmlcommons welcomed the blog sisters – high five ladies! I sometimes wonder what I must look like when I’m sat smiling and nodding at my computer because when I caught up with the Hangout on Air, it just solidified everything I thought I knew about why I blog.

I’ve moved from (in 8 years) from writing on a personal level, to writing about notes, research and project development in photography to not blogging at all. To worrying about my lack of blogging, to reading about blogging, to watching videos about blogging, to then starting to want to blog again. HOORAY. KateGreen28 is back!

I’m kinda gutted that I haven’t blogged all the much at all about developing Phonar Nation classes for 8-11 year olds. Because I look at what I did and have forgotten a lot of the challenges I had to overcome and why. This isn’t just for my benefit, but it would also benefit the growing Phonar Nation community so that some of the answers are already out there.

There is also so much to be said for ‘being transparent’ online which is something I have learnt and grown to love (thanks to Dan Gillmor). I think that showing your work and thought process not only opens bloggers up to get advice and help, but it is a frank and honest display of motivation. I think that says a lot about a person and makes them more trustworthy- as long as they are a actually discussing something with integrity (obviously).

I think you’re right about transparency online and the ability of blogging to reveal our thought processes and development of our ideas. By doing this, the tentative and unfinished nature of blogging is brought forward. This encourages others to do the same type of exploration. The public nature of this activity supports collaborative and extroverted thinkers who really do need to bounce their ideas off of others so it mobilizes intellectual resources that would otherwise be underdeveloped or invisible.

I like Howard Rheingold’s distinction between public and audience, with public being interactive and collaborative. (I hope I’ve got this right). If you are writing for a public then you are writing to engage others. This type of writing does not need to be polished, does not need to express complete thoughts: it just needs to be clear. It is intended to be part of a conversation.

Audience writing may not be the same. It tends to be well scrubbed and decked-out for a night on the town. Sometimes it even says, in Shelley’s words, “Look upon my works ye mighty, and despair”… Those are the blogs I don’t bother commenting on.